Tide
by Jack E. Peace
Summary: Set after "Death Takes a Halliwell", Prue thinks about Life and Death and everything in-between (Prue POV)


Disclaimer: Not mine, wish they were, but they weren't, end of story.   
  
A/N: I just got finished watching another re-run on TNT so I decided to write another story. Thanks for reading it and for reviewing!  
  
"Tide"   
by SparkingDiamond   
  
The tide brushed against the rocks, slipping back into the swelling sea, leaving behind only white foam which clung to the rocks underneath me, desperately holding onto something solid before vanishing, relenting. Just like me.   
The gentle breeze teased by hair, whipping it around my face and I did nothing to keep it under control, simply let it be manipulated. I had learned long ago, sitting here alone, that it was better to let some things be given up, some things couldn't be won. I knew that, but that didn't mean that I wanted to believe it, to let myself be manipulated until it was my time to relent, to vanish.   
So I sat and watched the ebbing tide, watched the sun glisten against the choppy surface of the ocean, which always was and would never cease, the true definition of immortality. The thing that I almost wished I could grasp, the thing I knew I would never have. I had never wanted to be immortal before, the thought of living forever (ultimately alone) had never appealed to me, but now, with the knowledge that I had been so close to Death and still was made me realize how much I feared the inevitable.   
What a cliché, everyone feared Death, no one wanted to die. In a way, I still resented Death and feared it, unable to believe that in a way, it was not the ultimate bad guy, that it wasn't good or evil, it just was. Like the tide, it wasn't anything, it just was.  
Death had told me that my name had been on his List, that I could be dead right now, not sitting here, watching the ocean and wondering what made me so special. I had stopped fighting Death and in doing so, I had saved my life. But for how long? How long would I continue to feel the sun and watching the tide and laugh with my sisters, cry over sappy old movies that Phoebe made me watch and listen to Piper talk about married life? Being a Charmed One made me constantly see Death and feel powerless when, despite everything I had done, I could do nothing but watch and lose. Despite that, I still wasn't prepared for facing my own Death, or the Death's of the Innocents that I was sworn to protect.  
The tide brushed against the rocks again and I bent down, running my fingers through the chilly water, only to have it seep away again, leaving me with nothing but damp fingers and a slimy piece of kelp that clung to my fingers. Wrinkling my nose, I flicked it off into the water again, watching it be swallowed by the swell; I thought of how Phoebe would have laughed and thrown the soggy seaweed into mine or Piper's face, engaging in a childish, sisterly fight.   
Thinking of my sisters made me smile slightly, a momentary lapse from the smothering thoughts of Life and Death; I thought about how Phoebe had proudly christened her sand castle Phoebeville only a day earlier and how Piper and Leo had bantered over the placement of the placement of their wedding present as only a married couple could. I glanced down the beach, looking at the spot where Phoebeville had stood, where now only damp sand and shells remained.   
How easily things, built with such care and patience, could be destroyed, no matter how hard we tried to protect them. Life was like that, built and tended so carefully only to be snatched away without a moments notice. Swirling infinitely like the tide.   
How much longer did I have with my sisters, did my sisters have with me? Could it be so sudden that I wouldn't make it home, never get to tell them that Death was so close always and we couldn't waste time thinking of ways to beat it, that we had to just let it swirl around us until it decided time was up, that was it.   
But wasn't that what I was trying to do? Escape Death, find a way to beat it? Then suddenly, it hit me: that would be like trying to stop the tide from rising. What another cliché, what was it with me today?   
Enough, enough thoughts about life and death and how short time is, what good did that do anyone? There was nothing that could be done to stop it, no point in trying.   
And yet, the topic didn't filter from my mind, Death still held control of my thoughts. So, I let it, let myself think of life, when my mother was alive and death, when I had sat all those years ago, cursing God and everything that He entailed.   
And so I sat, the tide swirling at my feet. 


End file.
